Sunday, September 22, 2013

1964 - THE GORGON, weak Hammer horror film

The ancient Greek creature the Gorgon is lose in eastern Europe turning people to stone. It's up to a couple of British actors playing some kind of European professors to track it down.

The Gorgon is a mighty disappointing Hammer film in spite of the involvement of "the big three" from Hammer, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and the director Terence Fisher. The production looks cheap even by Hammer's standards with the whole thing filmed on about 4 sets. The woman with the snake head hair is what it is for a 1960's special effect.

What should have been a horror film is really more of a murder mystery story with Christopher Lee attempting to figure out exactly who the Gorgon is. Even this part of the story is so poorly done that it's pretty obvious almost immediately

James Bernard who could usually be counted on to ramp things up with an over the top score tried for a little more subtlety this time for a film that probably needed things to be ramped up a whole lot.